Lakers at Hornets, 8:00pm: The Hornets are fresh off a loss to the Bobcraps. The BOBCRAPS. They may forfeit this game because they don't have enough players able to shake off crippling depression and get out of bed in time for the game.

Bobcraps at Rockets, 8:00pm: Did you know the Bobcraps have failed to break the 80 point barrier THIRTEEN TIMES this season? I was unaware they didn't have a 24 second clock rule in Charlotte games nowadays.

Cavaliers at Bucks, 8:00pm: The Bucks have acquired Kwame Brown. If that doesn't turn the tide and send them to a championship this season, I don't know what will.

Magic at Spurs, 8:30pm: Would anybody else be okay with not having to hear Dwight Howard's name mentioned for a few days? I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a break.

Pistons at Kings, 10:00pm: Pretty sure it's time to start calling it the Leastern Conference again, you guys. Per STATS LLC: "With four wins in six games, the Pistons have climbed back into the fringe of playoff contention. They are currently 11th in the East, three games behind New York and Milwaukee, which are tied for the final spot." They are 15-27!

Celtics at Warriors, 10:30pm: Not fair. This game is after half the Celtics' players usual bedtimes! If they aren't allowed to watch Matlock before the game, they're gonna really be grumpy.

Hawks at Clippers, 10:30pm: The Clips have dropped 8 of their last 12. Pretty sure I could have copied and pasted that sentence from any Clippers game preview from prior to this season. Ah, nostalgia...

Jazz at Suns, 10:30pm: The Jazz are 15-6 at home... and 5-15 on the road. If they lose again tonight, that'll be impressively perfectly symmetrical! Neat.

Thanks to Raza for keeping this site on life support. It's in worse shape than the Knicks! Or Orlando if Dwight walks at the end of the season. Well...maybe not that bad.

The chest/shoulder/side bump seems to be pretty dangerous for a celebratory gesture. I'm surprised someone hasn't twisted an ankle or otherwise injured something while doing it. Like when Nate faceplanted after jumping over Pierce a couple years ago.

Didn't it grow in popularity because it's not as gay as a slap on the butt? Except the participants end up bumping their chests and crotches against each other.

No Walsh anymore, no D'Antoni.So how long until Bricks are back in Isiah era state? I'd put over/under line at 3 years. I'm conservative, not that they'd deteriorate slowly ... but it's damn hard to match Isiah's "achievements" .

Wooo! D'ead coach bounce! And that's a HELL of a bounce. Every single Knick had a positive plus/minus... B-Dizzle dished 10 assists in 18 minutes, STAT was 8-10, and the Bricks beat the Fail Blazers by 22.

...unless we're counting the fourth quarter, in which case they beat them by 42. Damn.

I saw the first half of the Knicks-Blazers, and it sure looked like the Blazers were playing with blindfolds and boxing gloves.Either that, or I tuned on some videogame in which one of the players was in god mode and the other was a blind man with no fingerss...

That was some crazy dead coach bounce. I haven't seen the Knicks that lively since... ever? I love Lin, but he's getting way too many turnovers. And he was basically the only one who didn't hop on the dead coach express. It seems like he just can't gel with Melo and Amare that well. I think it'll be better to let Barron deal with those 2 egos and let Lin run with the bench. Not really a demotion since he's like a rookie PG at this point.

Though I don't want to take anything away from dead coach bounce, that's proven theory ... I see another factor here.Blazers' players are tanking cause they want get rid of coach McMillan. That plan could backfire and mutiny leaders could found themselves traded today.For now, they lost 4 out of 5 with average of 22 points. Fifth game was vs Washington, pure Generals can't win even over team taking a dive.

Damn Blazers shook up their roster pretty significantly. Fired Nate, traded off Wallace and Camby...Batum and LA bout to have a field day. Too bad they couldn't trade Felton because no one wanted him haha.

Just got back from taking my family out to dinner in celebration of the Spurs dumping Richard Jefferson. Even if Stephen Jackson isn't exactly at his 2003 level, getting rid of Jefferson's awful contract is a positive no matter how you slice it.

The Nuggets' reasoning is simple: they get younger, bigger, and cheaper.

Two years ago, they were one of the oldest teams in the league, with one of the highest payrolls, and with a drastically undersized frontcourt (Nene at 6'10, KMart at 6'8, Melo at 6'8). Now they have 11 players under contract who are age 26 or under (12 when they resign Chandler), they're under the cap (even after signing Chandler), and they've got 3 seven footers and some pretty big forwards.

They gave up Nene -- a player who I really like, but who is definitely limited -- for McGee, a player with a lot of upside but a limited supply of brains. While you never see Nene in the "not top 10", he often deserves to be in the "soft 10" for such plays as trying a finger roll when he could've dunked, letting a smaller player take a rebound from him, or shrinking away from big moments. Nene's a good defender and very efficient, but I'm not sure you can win with him as your highest-paid player, so I don't see a huge amount of downside in shipping him out.

I'm also not sure you can win with McGee on your team, period. But the Nuggets coaching staff managed to deal with JR Smith, Melo, KMart, and a host of other headcases with considerably less drama than those guys are producing on their current teams, so maybe they can handle JaVale as well. Of course, this is a very big maybe -- the most likely scenario is that the Nuggets stay more or less the same record-wise, but have more truly bawful moments in getting there. That's a trade I can support.